Goodmans GPS280 Review

Overall Rating

Affordable DAB/CD/(FM) device, which works reliably.

Very insensitive remote, unintuitive controls. FM tuner is useless. Confused design and not pretty.

Bought the Goodmans GPS-280 in October 2003, when it was the only DAB device under £100 about. And you got a free CD player with it to.

It's a peculiar machine that can't decide if it is a portable stereo, a kitchen radio or a hifi separate element. The design is a weird cross of these various forms, which means that if you put it on a shelf all the controls are on top. There are loads of them, confusingly laid out and it is quite hard to drive directly - it's a lot easier to use the remote.

The problem here is that the remote is crummy. It was clearly built for the least possible amount of money. Cheap 'pop membrane' buttons and you have to point it really carefully at the machine to get it to work. This aspect is the only really tiresome thing about it.

Reception is OK, although we got muddy wurblings and drop outs until a connection to our existing FM aerial was made, at which point it worked fine. (It has a socket for an external aerial).

It has had over 2000 hours use in two years and is still working fine, although I expect the remote volume buttons to give out soon.

The FM tuner is a tiny little dial thing tacked on the back corner. the same thing you get in freebie portable analoge FM radios, and is almost uselss. Ignore it.

The sound quality is OK, but because the speakers point up you lose something. It sounds better if you prop it up on end in the 'portable stereo' atttiude, but then it's somewhat unstable. As I said the confused design makes it a jack or all trades, master of none, sort of machine.

Haven't used the CD much but it works. It also has line out facilities which we have never tried, but which mean you could connect it to better speakers if you wanted.

One other mild irritation is the start-up time. It takes a good 4 seconds to make a noise after you turn it on. This, combined with the unreliable remote, is annoying. I don't know if all DAB radios do this, or if the Goodmans is particularly slow.

Overall we are very pleased with DAB in general - with extra stations like the world service and BBC7 and 6, planet rock etc. I will be buying more of them as the prices come down to something more reasonable for a radio.